Conscious cognitive effort in cognitive control

[eng] Cognitive effort is thought to be familiar in everyday life, ubiquitous across multiple variations of task and circumstance, and integral to cost/benefit computations that are themselves central to the proper functioning of cognitive control. In particular, cognitive effort is thought to be cl...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Shepherd, Joshua
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:España
Institución:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repositorio:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:2445/216474
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/216474
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Consciència
Autoconsciència
Neurociència cognitiva
Cognició
Consciousness
Self-consciousness (Awareness)
Cognitive neuroscience
Cognition
Descripción
Sumario:[eng] Cognitive effort is thought to be familiar in everyday life, ubiquitous across multiple variations of task and circumstance, and integral to cost/benefit computations that are themselves central to the proper functioning of cognitive control. In particular, cognitive effort is thought to be closely related to the assessment of cognitive control's costs. I argue here that the construct of cognitive effort, as it is deployed in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, is problematically unclear. The result is that talk of cognitive effort may paper over significant disagreement regarding the nature of cognitive effort, and its key functions for cognitive control. I highlight key points of disagreement, and several open questions regarding what causes cognitive effort, what cognitive effort represents, cognitive effort's relationship to action, and cognitive effort's relationship to consciousness. I also suggest that pluralism about cognitive effort—that cognitive effort may manifest as a range of intentional or nonintentional actions the function of which is to promote greater success at paradigmatic cognitive control tasks—may be a fruitful and irenic way to conceive of cognitive effort. Finally, I suggest that recent trends in work on cognitive control suggests that we might fruitfully conceive of cognitive effort as one key node in a complex network of mental value, and that studying this complex network may illuminate the nature of cognitive control, and the role of consciousness in cognitive control's proper functioning.